


Someone You Loved

by shanewantstobattle, TrappedInSonder



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Again, Blood and Gore, Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gay, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Saves Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Is very talented, Jaskier almost dies, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Post-S1Ep6, Stabbing, The Witcher - Freeform, angsty boys, lewis capaldi - Freeform, mountain argument happened, reunited, someone you loved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:20:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanewantstobattle/pseuds/shanewantstobattle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrappedInSonder/pseuds/TrappedInSonder
Summary: What had happened? He couldn’t decipher it, couldn’t make sense of it; yet all he knew is that, even with everything: he wanted Jaskier safe. But the hands, now moving to try and barricade the bard’s wound, even they knew, that time wasn’t perhaps on the Witcher’s side. And yet: Geralt will do anything, above and beyond, to make sure the other lives.“You’re going to be okay.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 176





	Someone You Loved

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to another joint fic with the lovely and talented WitcherShane as always! We hope you all really enjoy this fic, we heard the song and knew it had to be done. As always, please leave a comment with what you thought, we always love to hear what you think!
> 
> Obviously, we do not own the song and did not write it.   
> Song- Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi go stream it, it's a beautiful song.

“I’m going under and this time I fear there’s no one to save me.”

Jaskier choked out a broken grunt of pain as he was slammed back against the wall by the taller man, rough hands grasping at scrawny shoulders. His head had smacked against the brick fairly hard; hard enough to blur his vision and make his ears ring, his senses lagging behind everything that was going on. 

“This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy.”

His nights had been sleepless since the mountain, nights of rest few and far between. So, often, he found himself roaming the streets under the cover of the night until the sun began to peek through the trees and shine onto the town. The same sunlight shone on him now, illuminating the skies with an amber shade that reminded him of a gaze he’d longed for for so long. Now, the male had little energy to fight back, dark bags under muted blue eyes that no longer shone with the light of childish glee that was usually contained within them. 

“I need somebody to heal...”

That was how he’d found himself here, after assuring the man before him he’d held nothing of worth on his person, his fairly self-defeatist attitude quickly grinding on the man’s nerves. That was when he had been shoved against the wall, gasping as the wind knocked out of him, producing a knife from somewhere Jaskier hadn’t seen before. 

“Somebody to know...”

One sharp thrust was all it took to pierce his body with the blunt dagger, breaking into his body violently. The shock had overtaken the bard first, dull blues widening with the shock of it. And then the pain hit, blossoming over his body as the knife was wrenched out of the wound, blood staining his white undershirt quickly after. 

“Somebody to have...”

Another thrust, back into the same wound, body still pinned to the wall by a strong forearm across his neck, though his legs threatened to collapse. He leant forward, throat constricting, unable to gasp in any breaths. His shaky hands reached out to grasp at the other’s shirt, as if trying to get a teather back on reality. And then it was ripped back out with another spray of blood, blood spilling from his lips and spraying the other’s face, but he seemed too focussed to notice. 

“Somebody to hold.”

One more thrust in, ripping Jaskier’s breath from him again, sending lightning through his nerves, spreading like a shockwave through his nervous system. Across his body like a raging inferno with no hopes of being smothered. It winded up his chest like a clockwork toy, forcing his breath from him in the form of a punched out sob, eyes glazing over and shining with tears. 

“It’s easy to say but it’s never the same...”

Jaskier choked on another breath as the male ripped the blade from his abdomen, more blood spilling out and staining his clothes crimson. He watched the male back away, leaning against the wall and propping himself up against it as the other backed away, his legs trembling and weak. Then, he watched as he ran off through teary eyes, head rolling to the side and following the direction, staring hopelessly until he was gone.

“I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain...”

The bard raised his arm to clamp over his bleeding wound, his whole body trembling as a shout of pain left him. His eyes rolled to the side. The morning market was just beginning to arrive. Perhaps if he could just get there…

“Now the day bleeds into nightfall…”

Dandelion willed his feet to move, though his body felt like he was carrying weights. Dragging a ball and chain behind him, forcing the soles of his shoes to drag across the stones, pulling his top half to the floor. But he did his best to stay upright. One foot after another, he can do it. 

“And you’re not here-”

If only HE was here. If only Geralt was by his side, none of this would’ve happened. If Geralt hadn’t said those words. Hadn’t spit pure venom that had sent him to this place in the first place. Hadn’t exiled the other from his presence. He could imagine him there, a ghost of his form behind him. Strong arms wrapping around his waist, grasping the wound tightly. Lifting him up. Allowing him to walk. Supporting him. Jaskier close to his chest, the musky scent of blood long shed and oak ashes from the campfire extinguished earlier within the night.

“ -to get me through it all.”

Perhaps if he believed hard enough, Geralt would appear. The spectral form of the other, conjured by a desperate imagination at work, would materialise and grasp him close. Mutter reassurances in that gentle yet deep tone. That he would soothe the bard’s fears. His worries, concerns. Still his trembling form and his blanket hold and carry him to safety like his knight in shining armour. His last hope.

“I let my guard down…-”

But he wasn’t coming. Jaskier knew this. He’d bet a pretty penny the other hadn’t even spared him a thought since their argument. Since Geralt had informed him very clearly of how little he meant to the Witcher. And the ghostly comfort of the other’s grasp disappeared, though it was never there in the first place. It left the male cold, skin turning sickly pale as the life drained from it, a stark contrast to the crimson blood upon it. 

“-and then you pulled the rug.”

One foot before the other. A slow pace but he was moving. Getting closer and closer. He could see the bright lights. Could make out the bustling outlines of people as they fussed on their individual tasks, their attention soon turning on the ghastly male as he stepped out into the morninglight. And a woman screamed, watching in fright as his mouth gaped, trying to find the words.   
One foot. Other foot. Left foot, right foot. Left, right. Left-...Right-...

“I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved.”

It was getting increasingly harder to move, feet seemingly stuck in place, as if he was trying to wade his way through tar. He couldn’t do this for much longer. His legs constantly trembled with the threat of giving way, and his head felt heavy. He couldn’t keep up, though one thing was certain in his mind. He was going to die here. 

+

“I’m going under and this time I fear there’s no one to turn to.”

Booted footfalls hit the packed earth with, uncertain steps, a gait always so compacted, held together, and so assured, yet now hit the earth more uncertainly than in the previous moment. The moon, nigh upon her ascension onto her throne of the night sky, illuminated the Witcher’s lone steps, his physique meandering aimlessly through the quieting town; most everyone either packed in the tavern or settled in sleeping with loved ones by their side. Doing what he should be doing. 

Yet, here he was.

“This all or nothing way of loving got me sleeping without you.”

Sleepless. Alone. The insomnia of it all clutching to his frame like an intern to death, spindly fingers taut against a muscled physique as it gripped him, shook him to the core like a grappling hook stuck to his heart. It left an ache in his chest, like an anvil was strapped from the bottom of the ribbed castle protecting his heart, weighing it down and dragging it down into the recess of his abdomen. 

It hurt far worse than any monstrous inflicted wound ever could.

Yet, it was all his fault; his damned self - sabotage breaking the back of his knees, forcing him to crumble, to force the Witcher to fall onto his knees, as it did again and again; to risk everything he had, so he could stay doing what he always did. Alone.

“Now I need somebody to know.”

Is that what love felt like?

That in the loss of such, this painstaking ache? Geralt couldn’t outrun it; he knew he couldn’t. Couldn’t outrun the scent of Jaskier on his furs and sheets, his clothes, Roach, him. Yet here he was, trying to still put it behind him. Yet the White Wolf knew, he knew he couldn’t. Thoughts swirled through his mind like a tsunami, his heart the eye of it all. Scenarios of everything he could’ve said, done differently, yet, didn’t.

“Somebody to heal.”

But gods: Jaskier. Geralt could still remember the first day he joined the Witcher on a hunt - not that he’d ever tell Jaskier that - the creation of that song; the first of many. He remembered all those too, each and every line of Jaskier’s songs, even if they were “foolish, silly little contraptions” as the bard would deem them, waving off his own vocal talent with a concentrated look and a frustrated strum of his lute.

Geralt remembered it all. Could even picture the expression the bard would hold, ears recalling the sound of the little huff he’d exude.

“Somebody to have.”

Remembering Jaskier in his arms, the feeling of the bard’s lithe figure curling around the Witcher’s strong grasp like he craved it, needed it. Perhaps the one who needed it most, was Geralt. His arms ached then, as he walked, his body feeling like earth’s own weight, a lost pendulum as it swung back and forth, the secondary pendulum to bounce off it : absent.

“Just to know how it feels.”

How it feels to old Jaskier one last time; even if the bard hated him for everything after the fact. That was the funny thing, the breeze that was softly sweeping through alabaster locks whispered to the Witcher, you never know when a last time is upon you: until it’s long gone.

“It’s easy to say but it’s never the same.”

Jaskier. Three syllables, all pressed into a singular word. A name unlike any other, unique alone to the bard. Yet, even if he said it now, in the expanse of the lonely night, such would be in vain, a plealess cry for someone who wasn’t there.

“I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape.”

With the bard by his side, it was almost like Geralt wasn’t a Witcher. Or, well, not the kind everyone thought he was, anyway; Jaskier taught him who he really was, who he could be. Taught him that escaping from all those words, those harrowing rumors and presuppositions, he could be so much more. That, even with everything he’d been through, he could love.

And he used that love to love Jaskier.

“ Now the day bleeds into nightfall ,”

The moon reached her peak with ease, something she’d done for centuries prior, night after night. She overlooked the lone Witcher with an eerie ghastly light, leading him to — where? 

Somewhere he knew not, but anywhere away from where he was surrounded by the remnants of Jaskier was anywhere he’d go. The night welcomed him, the moon’s embrace one he was used to; solidarity in the silence of her halo, basking him in the same desaturation the rest of the crown of his own skull was adorned. He was like a god of the night. Alike Hades, tied to roam all of time alone.

“And you’re not here, to get me through it all .”

And Jaskier, oh Jaskier, was akin to Persephone, blessing him for half of the year, flourishing his world in blossomed songs, lute strings like the stems of flowers. Yet, his Dandelion wasn’t here, the songbirds having flown south for the winter. Geralt walked along the earth, her quiet disposition unquelling to his scuffing shuffles, the packed dirt a densely laid blanket, a carpet laid for the Witcher to roam. And as he walked, the moon followed him like Cerberus, moving down the trajectory of the sky, racing to meet Geralt upon the horizon’s edge.

“I let my guard down.”

The waning power of the night, an eerie fog that rolled across the world, was where the line of vulnerability was at its weakest, where even the White Wolf let his guard down. Normally, he’d do it casted under the moon’s rays scattering upon the floor of an inn, disposed across furs that covered to sides of a singularly tossed coin. But he was out in the open now, heart upon his scar adorned sleeve.

“And then you pulled the rug.”

And just like that, before he knew it, dawn was approaching once more, the yawning sun trickling its spindly rays across the lip of the horizon, pulling the shrouding sheath of the night from under the Witcher, whose hands were now clenched feverishly at his side; if all it served was an attempt to keep him together, to hold what was left of the scattering remnants of an aftermath he wished didn’t have to be. 

“I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved.”

A safety he yearned for, craved in that moment. A feeling he never thought he’d have the chance to feel again, to give. Nevermind receive it back. His steps slowed as the sun crawled its way to claim the throne it dominantly sought, his golden gaze aware now of where he was, how far he’d wandered throughout the night. Yet, he could hear something. Faint, but there in the echoing palace of his eardrums.

Where had he led himself?

“And I tend to close my eyes when it hurts sometimes.”

Jaskier’s hand clamped onto his side with a weak grasp, dragging in a shaky breath through crimson-coated tiers as he finally felt his legs give way beneath him. He crumpled to his knees, surrounded by a semi-circle of shocked townsfolk. A hand outstretched to meet the ground before his face could, holding himself up in a crumpled, folded position. 

Geralt’s attention piqued at the sound, his consciousness snapping back to attention with a widened gaze, alertness back up and running upon a snapping start. His gaze, golden as the dewey days’ rays, searched, footfalls resuming as he tried to close the distance between himself and the commotion. First they were shuffles, then a jog, then a full run, the sound getting closer and closer.

“I fall into your arms.”

Death-stricken features fell ghastly, skin as pale as freshly fallen snow. A man crouched to his knees and gently caught the male as he swayed in his position, laying him onto his back atop the sun-warmed ground, tilting his head back so he could attempt to take full breaths. “Is anyone here a doctor? We need a doctor! Can anyone dress a wound?!”

Wound. That word was what was in the forefront of Geralt’s mind as he came up on the commotion he had heard a little ways back. His form stood, frozen, as he realized who the commotion was for. Not the townsman, who was frantically looking around and now clinging to Geralt’s gaze in sheer desperation. No. It was for Jaskier. Wound. The word refreshed the Witcher’s attention, his body moving before his mind could even process it, a toned arm acting like a shield as he shied the male away from the injured bard. He couldn’t remember then, if he had said something to the male, but such didn’t matter. No. None of it mattered when he had led himself back to Jaskier. Wound.

“I’ll be safe in your sound ‘till I come back around.”

He’d watched the townsman as he was pushed aside through lidded eyes, taking a sharp breath as he tried to identify the man who’d suddenly begun to take charge, though he couldn’t make him out from the distance. His breaths began to quicken as he found himself at a constant shortage of breath, panic spreading now the adrenaline was wearing off. It was getting dark....So dark. Dark, and cold, and lonely.

Geralt moved with swiftness akin to a Witcher, his hands immediately moving to cradle the bard’s head, trying to discern the wound plaguing his body. His mouth opened, moved to form the words of the other’s name upon his palate. Wound. What happened? Geralt’s mind was running a mile a minute as he searched the bard’s physique, begging for the other to answer him, for any sort of response.

“For the day bleeds, into nightfall,”

“G-Geralt?”

He managed to choke out, trembling, bloody hands raising to twist in the thin fabric of the other’s undershirt, staining it crimson in the process.   
Tears stung in his eyes, gathering and breaking free at the corners to run down his temples, leaving shiny streams in their wake. 

He could hear the other speaking but the words weren’t going in, and he couldn’t find the words to answer what he had grasped. He could only say what he knew. What he was focussing on. 

“Geralt-... H-help, it-...It hurts…”

Geralt’s worry only increased with the seconds as they passed, that worry so obvious upon his brow, upon his widened hues. It arched his brows, furling them to an upcurling angle towards the sky, dancing in the trajectory of the sun’s nigh trail. “Jaskier.” Even the other’s name on his lip was quivering, tremoring like the trembles shaking upon the Witcher’s tiers; he refused to trust in what he was seeing. What had happened? He couldn’t decipher it, couldn’t make sense of it; yet all he knew is that, even with everything: he wanted Jaskier safe. But the hands, now moving to try and barricade the bard’s wound, even they knew, that time wasn’t perhaps on the Witcher’s side. And yet: Geralt will do anything, above and beyond, to make sure the other lives. 

“You’re going to be okay.”

“And you’re not here, to get me through it all.”

“Please, please…”

Jaskier gasped in a breath, sapphire eyes flicking over the other’s citrine gaze desperately. In search of anything. Of the reassurance he needed to believe he was going to be okay. Searching those amber hues desperately for the cool, calm and collected expression the other so often wore. It always worked wonders to calm him, but he couldn’t find that same purchase in the other’s gaze. Just worry. Panic. 

“Please, I don’t want to die-...Fuck, Geralt-...”

A man rushed through the crowd, led by the older man who had disappeared a few minutes ago. The new man knelt opposite Geralt. A healer, thank the gods.  
He didn’t speak, just moved to push the other’s hands away from the wound, brows creased in concentration.

Geralt was hesitant at first, to move his hand. He felt protective of the other, like something bad would happen if he pulled away. But he knew the healer was going to help Jaskier, to mend the wound. Even if his hand, now clad in glistening crimson, pulled away, the Witcher himself didn’t; he stayed by Jaskier’s side, all prior grievances nothing but the aftermath rustling of leaves through a breeze. He wasn’t going to leave the other again.

“I let my guard down.”

Jaskier watched the healer with wide, doe-like eyes for a long moment before wailing as some substance was pressed into the wound. Then it began to fizz. He grasped onto the other’s shirt as if for dear life, the healer continuing to work quietly despite the yells. Jaskier tried to call out for the other but the words died in his throat, instead just staring at him weakly, tears continuing to stream from widened eyes. 

“He’s stable now, but we have to get him back to my home.”

The healer spoke suddenly, tying a temporary piece of fabric around the other’s waist to keep pressure on the wound. 

Watching, wide-eyed, that was all Geralt could do: watch. It took a few paces of a moment for the healers’ words to get to him, his body stirring a grunt from his tiers. “I’ll carry him then. How far is it?” Though, his gaze never left the bard laid before him, defenses gone. Vulnerable. Hurt. The Witcher promised himself then, that he’d never take his gaze off the other again. He didn’t want Jaskier to get hurt like this if he had a say in it. And every other time but today, he did.

“And then you pulled the rug.”

“Not too far at all. Just across the square.”

The healer stood and waited for the other to lift him, watching with cautious eyes.   
Jaskier cried out as he was lifted from the ground, the movements sending paralysing pain through his side. “Geralt-! Shit-...Can’t-....Fuck, it hurts…”

The bard hid his face in the other’s shoulder, panting heavily, though the crowd cheered for the healer and the Witcher. 

The Witcher, on the other hand, paid no mind to such cheers, his primary focus on the bard in his arms, his wails of protest of the pain forefront in his eardrums. “ Just a little bit longer, okay? You’re going to be okay Jaskier.” His voice was rough, rigid as a scraping stone, but not for a scolding tone, but rather rigid in trying to reassure the other, to ensure he knew Geralt was there for him. And that he’d no longer leave his side.

“I was kinda getting used to being someone you loved.”

“I know….I know. You’ve got me, right?”

He mumbled quietly, drawing in a shaky breath as the healer led him into his home, Jaskier quietly slipping unconscious in his arms.   
The grip Geralt had on Jaskier tightened then, like a stronghold barricading and protecting the bard. But when he spoke, there was no hesitancy, no need for a pausing thought,

“I got you.”


End file.
